Looking Back 46) Cat

                    Cat's Eyes

Cat’s Eyes is another golden oldie from the 80’s.  A 1980 born bay gelding by Sparkler I his dam was call Le Chat.  He began life over hurdles in the care of I Campbell and at big odds he never troubled the judge in his first five outings.  He was dropped to selling company for his sixth start at Exeter in November 1984 and he gained his first victory and came straight back to Pond House after the race after MCP bought him at the auction.

He made his stable debut at Newton Abbot at the end of the moth and it was a winning one with Paul Leach in the saddle.  He actually went onto win his first four starts for the yard and all of them were very easy successes.  After Newton Abbot he won at Exeter twice and then at Fontwell in listed class.  He then finished second at Chepstow before he lined up in the Supreme novices hurdle at the 1985 Cheltenham Festival.  He ran well to finish seventh of 30 runners at odds of 33/1.  He went to Liverpool after this and returned to winning ways with a nice performance.

After a summer break he was sixth at Cheltenham on his comeback run and he then had a trip over to Ireland where he finished second at Leopardstown in January 1986.  He was eighth in that year’s County hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival, fifth at Liverpool and finished his season off with a second at Taunton.

The following autumn he was third on his return at Ascot before he went on to win the Listed Spa hurdle at Cheltenham in December 1986. Placings at Haydock and Liverpool again followed that season.

In November 1987 he embarked on a novice chase campaign.  He won his chasing debut at Taunton with Peter Scudamore in the saddle and finished runner up at Newton Abbot on his next start.  Two further wins came on his next outings winning at Fontwell and then Uttoxeter with Jimmy Frost on board for the second of those wins.  He then finished runner up at Kempton before returning to winning ways again at Chepstow on 12^th March 1988.  Just three days later he ran in the Kim Muir handicap chase at the 1988 Cheltenham Festival.  He ran a cracker to finish second with Mr T Thomson-Jones the jockey on board.  He kept on well from the last but was beaten five lengths by winner Golden Minstrel.

Sadly, that proved to be his final ever run that day.  He picked up a leg injury which meant he was never able to run again and went home to his owners for his retirement.

He was the winner of 11 races from 31 career starts and he was placed nine times as well.  He won over £36,000 in prize money and it was a very good effort to come from a selling hurdle to win that many races and finish runner up at a Cheltenham Festival.  He was easily recognizable from his big yellow blinkers and wore blinkers on every start for Pond House apart from his debut!

Watch him finish second in the 1988 Kim Muir here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ATQC9K7LM4